It is quite different from China to the United States about the idea of the four fields of music. In the class, we found that American people prefer presentational music and high fidelity rather than participatory music and studio audio art. However, in China, there should be a little different. In China's rural area, participatory music and studio audio art are popular and welcomed. However, in contrast, people in urban area(cosmopolitan city) absolutely select presentational music as their first choice. And high fidelity music actually has little impact in China's music social environment. Few groups of people who us hi-fi equipment such as professional headphones, amplifiers, home theater and etc. will like to listen hi-fi music. Actually, in China's CD store, there are few hi-fi music which are sold, unless those famous pop singers' live DVD.
For me, I enjoyed hi-fi music the most and then I like to listen studio audio art. So, I am a person who does not really go to participate in a music or go for a live. However, those live musics are so strong with emotion and experience that I just don't want to miss it. Then I actually buy those presentational music in hi-fi format. The second reason why I prefer to stay at home, use my headphone and listen musics is that I can always focus on the content of the music I am listening without being interrupted. And the most important reason is that I love movie musics in original sound format, which usually are composed in computers, in the field of studio audio art.
As I mentioned in the class, farmers in China's rural area are passionate in participatory music, not only because of the low level of music ability requirement, but also of the need for encouraging their labor working. People in China's rural area were extremely poor in at least the past 40-50 years. So, they did not have CD player and never had chance to go to a concert. However, they were smart enough to create songs for themselves, using the simplest tune and stories from their daily life as lyrics.
I can not actually find any videos in Youtube to show the example of farmers in China's rural area. But I used to watch an American movie which included a short part of music sang by labors. This part of music is similar in the way they perform (Singing as they are working) to the participatory music in China's rural area.
"Look Down" From Les Miserables
In the contrary, people in China who sing like this are usually happy and energetic, since they are gaining power from singing songs created by themselves. Those musics usually use onomatopoeias to show the working environment. Sounds like "Sha-sha-sha-sha", "Bong-bong-bong", and "Ei-yo-Ei-yo" can easily be found from their music. I myself used to live in countryside with my grandparents for a summer when they brought me to the orchard we owned. I helped the worker there and learned the songs they sang. It was so powerful when people sing the song, forgetting the level of music ability or whether it sounds good or bad. The core of participatory is exactly the participation.
Presentational music is a kind of field which are strictly prepared. Usually, live is a kind of typical presentational music, since the musicians need to rehearsed it so many times and everything is arranged. Although, sometimes people may react different in a live, the presentational music is still enjoyed by people who want to see the talent of musicians. Basically, presentational music can be mixed with participatory movement, which makes presentational music much more fun and cheerful. As the audiences expect for the music shows, they may sometimes want to put their emotion with it and join the shows indirectly.
The video I choose to illustrate is from one of my favorite music events, which takes place only once a year --- the New Year Concert in Vienna. In this music in 1987, my favorite conductor Herbert Von Karajan, who is one of the most renowned conductor in the world, conducted a wonderful concert. The audiences in this year had a unforgettable memory of this event. This is the only one time Karajan conducted the music in this event and actually he contributed a habit in this concert which is still used now.
Radetzky March conducted by Herbert Von Karajan
Vienna New Year's Concert in 1987
As you may notice, audiences applauded without being asked. They automatically joined the music by clapping their hands. Why they did this? Because this music was a masterpiece of participational music in classical genre. The audiences enjoyed so much that they could not help to clap and explain their cheerful emotions. And Karajan finally conducted the people with the symphony orchestra in a perfect way, which the audiences do it every Vienna New Year's Concert after 1987.
High Fidelity music (Hi-Fi music) means that the recording of this music is based on a live. It is not necessary to be a live show, but it should absolutely be recorded in a live environment. Hi-Fi music can be recorded in so many places. We usually find classical music in Hi-Fi fields because people search for the feeling of listening the classical instruments they love. Also, we will find musicians who sell their music played in a live show, since they can probably create the feeling of standing in front of the musicians and listening to the music in a live show.
When this kind of music is pretty popular in United States and European, it actually starts to be popular in east Asia. Japanese loves Hi-Fi music the most in Asia, then the Korean. Chinese people usually prefer to go to the live show themselves rather than buy a CD or DVD for the live show.
Personally, I hear a lot of Hi-Fi music because I am a fan of classical music and jazz music. These music can be recorded in a very good quality due to the advanced technology the music industry has developed. When listening to Hi-Fi music, I always imagine that I am just in the place the music is recorded. As a good example, the music "A sky full of star" from Coldplay's new album can explain my feeling through listening Hi-Fi music.
"A Sky Full Of Star" from Coldplay
I bought this album and the audio studio version of this song is good. However, I prefer to hear this song in the version in this video. Because I can imagine that I am just following Chris Martin, the singer, jumping and singing as those people in the video. I can clearly make the connection between the music I hear and the live performance in iconic way.
It seems like audio studio art is less interactive with people in real-time performance. However, there are many musics which are hard to be performed can be easily composed using the computer. Sometimes those musics sounds impossible for a man to play are actually created by computer technology. In this kind of performance, the purpose and meaning of the music can be the clearest among the four fields, since the composers can put their relative expression directly to the music, no matter what they want to present. The topics related to audio studio music usually abstract because in most of time this kind of music is aimed to make money.
Nevertheless, some of audio studio arts can still precisely explain their intentions by putting it into a specific frame. For instance, movie music can actually express its meaning since it strongly connect itself to the background of a music. Even sometimes a specific piece of movie music become the index of a part of a movie. Those two videos can be great exemplification. They were both create in electronic method.(But the sound of instruments were collected from real-time performance)
Main Theme of Star Wars Series
"Breadcrumbs" from Skyfall of James Bond series
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